A lot has changed since Dorsey Brooks entered the world of education back in the 1940s.

The coach, who was born on Nov. 26 in 1914, grew up on a Jackson County farm. During high school, he moved briefly to Latimer, N.C., where he helped his basketball team win a state tournament, before moving back to Jefferson to attend school and play basketball for the Martin Institute (now Jefferson High School) before graduating in Jackson County.

When he finished there, he went to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) in Tifton, where he helped his team win the Georgia Junior College Basketball Tournament in 1936-37, the first year he was down there.

Brooks stayed at ABAC and played basketball for three seasons during the fall and winter, while returning home in the spring to help his father crop cotton. He finished college at ABAC in 1939, then transferred to the University of Georgia, where he played another basketball season and studied to become a vocational agricultural teacher.

After graduating from UGA in 1941, Brooks took some jobs as a Vo Ag teacher before he was drafted. He enlisted in the Navy serving stateside at the Naval Air Station off Chamblee-Tucker Road in Atlanta for three years during World War II.

Once through with his service, he took a job at Tucker High School, where he would be known as ‘Coach Brooks’ for a 15-year tenure. During his first couple of years there, he was the only coach on campus. Brooks coached boys’ and girls’ basketball, baseball, football and track— even eighth grade teams. Assistance eventually followed and ‘Coach Brooks’ had help with all the other sports beside baseball and basketball. While at Tucker High, he started little league teams in DeKalb County.

Brooks left Tucker in 1962 when he took a job as principal and boys’ basketball coach at Jefferson High School. He stayed there for three years before taking a job as principal at Central High School in Carrollton.

After eight years in Carrollton, Brooks took a job in Barrow County as principal of County Line Elementary School in Winder until he retired.

During his career at Tucker High School, the Tucker Tigers baseball team won the 1956 state championship, as well as several district and region championships.

“We had an excellent baseball team,” said Brooks, who calls the 1956 record one of the high points of his coaching career.

Baseball was his favorite sport to coach. It was where he had the most success, he said.

The baseball field at Tucker High School was dedicated and re-named Dorsey Brooks Field in May of this year in honor of “the father of Tucker baseball,” as Brooks has been called.

His winning records have never been broken to this day. He credits a great deal of those records to having inherited some great ball players. One of his baseball pitchers signed a contract with a major league team in the 1950s.

Brooks said “believing” and “teaching confidence” are critical to being a good coach. “A guy has got to believe,” said Brooks. “I would never want a guy to go to bat unless he believed he’s going to get a hit.”

Brooks said one way he taught confidence was by instilling in a batter that the strike zone was his territory.

“If that pitcher thinks he’s going to throw a baseball over that strike zone and you not hit it, he’s crazy,” said Brooks. “You know, you can turn that right around when you’re talking to that pitcher, too. What it takes is that you have got to believe. Of course, you have to have some ability to go along with it.”

Coaching better acquaints educators with students, explained Brooks. “Coaches have a closer contact with students than just a math or English teacher.”

Brooks has received numerous recognitions over the years including being inducted into the Hall of Fame at Tucker High School as well as the Hall of Fame at ABAC. He has also won teacher of the year many times.

Being revered as a father figure to hundreds of students over the years also means mounds of birthday and Christmas cards. Friends and family threw a birthday party for him last weekend where several former players and students attended. Brooks has four children, seven grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren. He and his wife, Dianne, are members of Jefferson First Baptist Church.

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